


Forget blank pages,

by MarauderCracker



Category: The Get Down (TV)
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, Shaolin is alive and gay and living in California, Vague References to Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-02 04:27:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10209596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarauderCracker/pseuds/MarauderCracker
Summary: The hot California sun never quite manages to warm Shao’s skin, the salty seawater can never wash away the grime and the smog of New York City.





	

In his chest Ezekiel is a shadow. Something that used to glow and now swallows the light around it, dulls out the shine of this golden life Shao’s managed to build for himself. The hot California sun never quite manages to warm Shao’s skin, the salty seawater can never wash away the grime and the smog of New York City. 

There are worse things that the phantom of Zeke’s hand on his shoulder and the ghost of Zeke’s smile over his beating heart, of course. Zeke’s memory is bittersweet, like a childhood scar that carries a funny anecdote with it. There are scars that don't hurt good and ghosts that still make fear crawl on his skin. 

There ain't no shadow and no phantoms in California, though. No time for flashbacks or nostalgia when the days shine bright and the nights glow in fluorescent lights. He swallows hard when a particular stage or the light hitting off a disco ball reminds him of Les Inferno and keeps spinning, doesn't skip a beat. 

His loft is near the beach and nothing like the burned down apartments where he squatted as a kid, nothing like Fat Annie’s dark, suffocating, dirty mansion. It's bright and spacious, only reminiscent of his squat houses in the Bronx in the colorful mess of graffiti that covers the walls. When he climbs up to the roof up here, he watches the sea instead of the train. Doesn't wonder if Zeke would enjoy this view (not that often, anyways). 

 

The song comes crashing against him, leaves him breathless and adrift, suddenly longing for the Atlantic shore as he listens to the radio with his feet in Pacific waters. The walkman hangs from his back pocket and he damns the fact that he didn't grab a fucking cassette, can't record the song to listen to it over and over and over until the tape fades into nothing. He stands perfectly still, water washing against his ankles and barely brushing his rolled-up denims as Zeke’s voice overflows him. He feels like he's drowning. 

The bridge starts with a familiar verse, a vivid memory of lying half-awake and completely high and listening to Zeke rap to himself, “true as the night turns black…”

The rest of the words are new, the verses cleaner and more skilled, Zeke’s voice just a little rougher. The beat goes on and on, washes over him like a flood. The sound of the ocean and the static of the radio mix with Zeke’s voice.

“And that was Mr. Books, from his new album…” 

The conductor introduces a Prince song and Shao feels like he can breathe properly for the first time in three whole minutes.

 

He looks for the album everywhere, digs through every record store in the city until he manages to get his hands on a cassette copy of it. The style on the cover art feels eerily familiar and the opening song is titled “Rule the world”; and somehow Shao feels that he can't listen to it just anywhere. 

He waits to be on his roof, a burning joint on one hand and the moon shining above him before he pops the tape in and presses play. 

He's not expecting to hear his own fucking name, that's for sure. 

 

There have been moments in the last fifteen years when Shao has thought of getting on a train or a plane or fucking something, anything that will take him to New York. He dreams about it, about stepping on the burned ruins of Les Inferno and finding Zeke standing in the middle of the rubble, eyes too big and too bright and the same words playing over and over. The beat goes on and on, in every dream Zeke turns around and walks away. 

In Shao’s mind the ruins of Les Inferno are still smoking, ashes floating in the air, a barren land where nothing else can ever grow. In Shao's mind Zeke’s always turning and walking away. 

That night he listens to the cassette over and over and over again, painfully rewinds the tape with a pen every time. The next day he asks a friend to find him a CD copy.

 

The CD skips over Shao’s name now. If he could get a fucking vinyl copy he just might replay that second over and over again, back and forth until the exact time-lapse of Zeke saying his name was etched onto the record like a scar. On the CD it's just a scratch, a tiny mark he repeatedly tries to clean up by blowing hot breath onto it and scrubbing with the fabric of his shirt.

He refuses to buy another copy out of pride, let's the scratched album repeat his name a couple times before he skips to the next song. 

 

Occasionally someone will come up to him while his spinning to ask for a song, which Shao rarely indulges.

Tonight he does, maybe because he remembers Cool Herc used to play this song back in the day, maybe because the guy’s lopsided grin reminds him of someone. When the same guy comes over and offers a drink after his joint is over, Shao accepts. 

(He doesn't flinch or pull back when the guy kisses him outside the club and that's something, but he still doesn't take him home. He never does.)

 

In the dream he steps over the burning ruins of Les Inferno and Zeke is standing amidst the rubble, flames licking his calves, and he steps forward to kiss him. Shao doesn't flinch, because he never doubted Zeke’s touch.

 

“Yo, Shao, I've got tickets for that rapper you like,” his friend Billy from the record store tells him. “The dude is touring and I ain't even heard until just now.”

Shao accepts the tickets Billy is handing him without looking and pockets them, more interested on what new vinyls his friend's found for him this week. He goes through the pile of records excitedly, always happy to add to his collection. 

 

(He almost washes the jeans with the tickets still in the back pocket.) 

 

He could ask someone to go with him, but he leaves the spare ticket on his kitchen counter and heads out alone instead. He's seen the posters around the city now, Dizzee's unmistakable trace surrounding the name that he gave to Zeke nearly twenty years ago.

The venue is full, the line outside going all the way around the corner. Shao high-fives the bouncer and cuts in without much hassle, thankful that he's played at this club (though, if he's being real, he's probably played at every club on the city by now). 

Seeing people with Zeke’s face on their shirts feels surreal in the same way that people asking for his autograph outside of clubs still does, even after he's been doing this gig for two decades. But there it is, Zeke’s unforgettable profile etched on white over black t-shirts, Mr. Books scrawled on Dizzee’s handwriting over it.

When the lights go down and Ezekiel walks out onto the stage, the crowd erupts. 

Shao finds himself pushing and elbowing his way through the crowd, the feeling of dejá-vu clenching at his chest as he remembers the first time he saw Zeke in the middle of a multitude holding a mic. There is little of that scrawny, insecure kid on the man that now stands on the stage. 

He makes it to the front without even realizing, only registering the beat and Zeke’s voice. The crowd pushes him against the stage, the beat goes on and on.

When he raps “his name was Shaolin Fantastic,” Shao almost expects Zeke too look down and find him. The lights are blinding, Zeke’s voice weighs against his sternum like a stone, Zeke’s shadow swallows him whole.

 

The guy from security gives Shao a one-armed hug that lasts a second too long and is a bit too tight for Shao’s liking, but he's used to everyone being more comfortable with touch than he is. What matters is that he make it backstage, even if he doesn't quite know what he's doing there. 

He wants to turn around, walk away. Like he did seventeen years ago just turn around and walk away, this time without Zeke’s eyes burning holes into the back of his head. He's still got time. 

He shifts on his heels, knows his red jacket is bound to draw attention in this crowd of crewmen dressed in black, decides to rush out of there. He turns to face a lopsided grin, big bright eyes that suddenly fixate on him. 

“Hey, Books,” he says, and the grin just grows wider. 

 

Two decades late, he stays instead of walking away, and when Zeke wraps him in a hug he doesn't flinch. 


End file.
